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Désert de Retz

Architecture in FranceBuildings and structures in YvelinesFolly buildings in FranceFrench landscape gardensGardens in Yvelines
Tourist attractions in Île-de-France
Désert de Retz Colonne détruite
Désert de Retz Colonne détruite

The Désert de Retz is a garden on the edge of the forêt de Marly in the commune of Chambourcy, in north-central France. It was created at the end of the 18th century by the aristocrat François Racine de Monville on his 40-hectare (99-acre) estate. The architect Boullée was involved in the creation of both Monville's town houses; it is less likely he had much do with the Désert de Retz, although Monville did, for a while, engage him as assistant to the architect Francois Barbier until 1780. Monville probably designed many of the features and structures himself, or had a strong supervisory role.The garden included between 17 and 20 structures, of which ten still survive, mostly referring to classical antiquity. Those buildings included a summer house (the "colonne brisée", or ruined column), in the form of the base of a shattered column from an imaginary gigantic temple, an ice house in the form of an Egyptian pyramid, an obelisk, a colonnaded temple dedicated to Pan, an open-air theatre, a ruined Gothic Chapel and a Chinese pavilion. This was one of a number of landscape gardens created in France at the time influenced by English examples. Its style could be described as Anglo-Chinois, or French landscape garden.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Désert de Retz (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Désert de Retz
Chemin De Sainte-Gemme, Saint-Germain-en-Laye

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Latitude Longitude
N 48.892777777778 ° E 2.0155555555556 °
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Chemin De Sainte-Gemme

Chemin De Sainte-Gemme
78240 Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Ile-de-France, France
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Désert de Retz Colonne détruite
Désert de Retz Colonne détruite
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Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

The Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye (more commonly, Lycée International or L.I.; English: International High School of Saint-Germain-en-Laye) is a French public school located in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, in the western suburbs of Paris, France. Established in 1952 as a school for the children of international personnel working at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in nearby Rocquencourt, the Lycée International caters to students with international and multilingual backgrounds. With a typical success rate of 99.9 to 100 percent on the French baccalauréat, the Lycée International consistently ranks among France's top schools and is considered to be the country's best public international school.Students at the Lycée International must be fluent in one of the languages taught in one of the school's fourteen national sections: American or British English, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. However, they are not required to be fluent in French to be admitted, as there is a special one-year Français Spécial language program. The academic curriculum of the international sections supplements the standard French curriculum with additional courses in literature/language and history/geography, taught in the language of the students' respective national sections, allowing them to pursue the option internationale du baccalauréat (OIB), the international variant of the French baccalauréat. The school's main campus at 2 bis rue du Fer à Cheval (48°53′44″N 2°3′40″E) in Saint-Germain-en-Laye contains a preschool (maternelle), a primary school (école élémentaire), a middle school (collège), and an upper school (lycée). Due to the size of the student body, some larger national sections have satellite campuses for primary and middle school grades at other local schools in the area of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. All students return to the main campus for their final three (lycée-level) years.